Child Protection Week is now – help protect them
Child Protection Week, which started on Friday (May 27) and continues to Thursday (June 2), aims to raise awareness on the violence and abuse against children.
The National Adoption Coalition of South Africa (Nacsa) is working hard to build courageous communities that put the needs and rights of children first.
In support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals adopted in August 2015, the Courage Child Protection Community Engagement programme is uniquely placed to drive goals to end abuse, exploitation, trafficking, torture and all forms of violence against children by 2030.
Since its launch during Child Protection Week 2015, the trainer workshops have been conducted with child protection officers, organisations and communities in South Africa and other countries.
“Our primary goal over the past year has been to find partners who can use Courage to effect real behavioural change at grass-roots level,” says Dee Blackie, global project leader for Courage on behalf of Nacsa.
Courage has also made inroads in the practical implementation of the South African Children’s Act, launched in 2010, especially among social work students.
The insights gained over the past year have also been revealing in terms of child protection challenges in South Africa.
“I start every workshop by asking the question, ‘Why do we have children, what is their purpose?’, which often shocks people. However, the answers received illustrate why we have such child protection problems in Southern Africa.
“The four most common answers provided are:
• I don’t know
• to fulfil cultural obligations
• a great source of labour
• a great retirement plan.
“If these are the primary reasons that people state for having children, we should not be surprised at the high levels of neglect, harmful cultural practices especially within our patriarchal societies, child labour and child marriage,” says Dee.
Nacsa’s plans in the continued support of its vision, ‘to unify and empower communities and society to create positive and permanent change in the lives of our children’ include:
• Choose to Care crisis pregnancy campaign (www.crisispregnancy.org.za)
• A new AddOption campaign focusing on adoption best practice and building towards World Adoption Day on November 9 (see www.adoption.org.za)
• A National Adoption Workshop on November 2 – 3 at www.adoptioncoalitionsa.org
